Technical Advisory Committee
Susan McClintic
Chair
Susan McClintic, a seasoned early childhood educator, has extensive teaching, leadership, and program development experience with infants and toddlers, preschool, school-age, and community college students. An advocate for high quality early learning experiences for all children, especially those facing challenges of poverty and other adverse childhood experiences, McClintic is a Board member for Families Forward, a nonprofit organization working to prevent and end family homelessness by providing access to housing and resources that create lasting stability. A former Commissioner, she Chairs First 5 OC’S Technical Advisory Committee, and is a member of the Cross-Sector Child Care Task Force.
McClintic has served previous board member and leadership roles with numerous groups benefiting children and families, including the Orange County Association for the Education of Young Children, Orange County Child Care and Development Planning Council, Irvine Child Development Center Operating Corporation, Irvine Child Care Project, and Northwood High School PTSA. In 2019, she was named Local Planning Council Outstanding Advocate for Children in Orange County.
A UCLA graduate, McClintic earned an M.S. degree from Bank Street College of Education, a teaching credential from UC Berkeley, and three years of doctoral level course work in Child Development from UCLA Graduate School of Education. She lives in Irvine with her husband Michael Gilbert M.D., a practicing Family Physician and Associate Regional Medical Director at St. Joseph Heritage. They have two grown children and two grandchildren under the age of 5.
Marie J. Jeannis, RN, MSN
Vice-Chair
Marie J. Jeannis is currently the Executive Director of Quality and Population Health Management at CalOptima, a County Organized Healthcare System (COHS). Jeannis is responsible for the oversight of key medical management functions including Population Health Management, Quality Management, Quality Analytics and Behavioral Health Integration.
Jeannis is a registered nurse and certified case manager with over 30 years of experience. Jeannis’ background is diverse and includes experience in home care, care management, utilization management, informatics, quality, and population health management. Jeannis works closely with the Chief Medical Officer to provide leadership to the executive team and key leaders, across CalOptima, in the development and implementation of a comprehensive population health management plan to address the health disparities and social determinant of health needs of CalOptima’s members.
Gail Araujo
Gail Araujo has served human services agencies and programs for over 23 years. During her career, she has worked within public assistance and CalWORKs programs, administrative services functions, and the Family Self-Sufficiency & Adult Services division. Prior to Araujo’s appointment as Division Director of Family Self-Sufficiency & Adult Services, she served in several positions within the Social Services Agency including as Deputy Division Director of Adult Services which includes Adult Protective Services and In-Home Supportive Services programs, and Deputy Division Director over Contracts, Procurement, and Human Resources. Over the last year, she was also part of the Department Operations Center (DOC) supporting SSA’s COVID response.
Araujo began her career as an Eligibility Worker in the CalWORKs, CalFresh, and Medi-Cal programs. Before coming to the County of Orange in 2017, she worked in Los Angeles County at the Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) and the Los Angeles County Internal Services Department (ISD). She was also part of the LEADER Replacement System (LRS) and led Project Management related activities for the migration of their case management and eligibility determination system.
She also served as the Communications Manager for LAPDSS where she provided oversight for internal and external communications. Araujo holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree in Sociology from California State University, Fullerton.
Michele Cheung, MD MPH, FAAP
Dr. Cheung is board-certified pediatrician and pediatric infectious diseases specialist who has been with the Orange County Health Care Agency (OCHCA) for 18 years. She is currently part of the leadership team in the Community and Nursing Services Division. Before joining the OCHCA, Dr. Cheung was a hospital-based pediatric infectious diseases consultant, and assisted with coordination of influenza surveillance at the state level. She continues to see pediatric patients as an infectious diseases consultant at CHOC Children’s Hospital in Orange, and is a Volunteer Associate Clinical Professor in Pediatrics at UC Irvine.
While working in public health emergency preparedness, Dr. Cheung spearheaded the formation of the Kids in Disasters (KIDs) Working Group to ensure that the needs of infants and children were included in disaster planning. The KIDs Working Group was recognized for its work by the American Red Cross Disaster Preparedness Academy, California Emergency Services Association, and California Department of Public Health.
Dr. Cheung completed a Pediatric Infectious Diseases fellowship at UC San Francisco (UCSF), a Preventive Medicine residency at UC Berkeley/UCSF, and a Pediatrics residency at UC Irvine. She received her M.D. from Jefferson Medical College, Pennsylvania, her M.P.H from UC Berkeley, and her B.A. from Princeton University. In her spare time, Dr. Cheung enjoys spending time with her two young adult children, cooking, embarking on food adventures, solving puzzles, and playing word games and most recently pickleball.
Jade Jenkins, Ph.D
Jade Jenkins is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) School of Education studying early childhood development policy. Her work is multidisciplinary and focuses on issues that are amenable to policy intervention, using diverse research methods to evaluate programs and understand the mechanisms that promote child and family wellbeing. She also serves as Chairperson for OC Head Start, Inc.
In her current role at UCI, Jenkins has many projects in progress, including an analysis of kindergarten readiness and performance of children enrolled in Head Start in Baltimore (Consequences of early learning program sequences: Evidence from Baltimore City), a study of the relationship between competition and quality in the mixed-delivery Early Care and Education market in North Carolina (A Rising Tide that Lifted All Boats? The Effects of Competition on Early Childhood Education Quality), and an assessment of early intervention and the impact of the Early Head Start program (The Long-Run Achievement Impacts of Early Head Start: Evidence from Program Roll-Out).
Jenkins grew up in New York and received her B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Florida in Family, Youth and Community Sciences. Her Master’s focus was in community development and poverty reduction. After the M.S. program, she worked in Florida’s early childhood care and education system, and this firsthand experience in policy implementation motivated Jenkins to pursue her Ph.D. in public policy. She specialized in early childhood development to learn how to evaluate and develop policies that provide support for families with young children and reduce poverty in the long-term.
Dawn M. Smith
Dawn M. Smith earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine and her Master of Social Work degree at California State University, Long Beach and has been a Licensed Clinical Social Worker since 2002. Smith joined the County of Orange Health Care Agency, Behavioral Health Services division in 1998 providing direct services in Lanterman Petris-Short (LPS) and adult outpatient settings and later providing supervisory oversight as a Service Chief I to adult outpatient clinics. Smith worked with the County’s adult inpatient programs as a Service Chief II providing oversight of daily operations and contract monitoring for acute hospital settings, long term care settings such as Institutes for Mental Diseases (IMDs), and the State Hospital.
Smith also served as an Administrative Manager II for four years with the Behavioral Health Services Prevention and Intervention programs overseeing county-operated programs funded with Mental Health Services Act dollars. In 2018, Smith became the Division Manager for Children and Youth Behavioral Health. In this capacity, Smith has had the opportunity to develop and oversee programs that serve children (0-17), transitional aged youth (16-25), and their families across the full continuum of care for both the Mental Health Plan and Drug MediCal-Organized Delivery System (DMC-ODS).
She collaborates closely with Social Services Agency, Probation, and the Courts to ensure seamless delivery of behavioral health services to system-involved youth in facility and community settings. Smith brings a systems perspective with a focus on collaboration between child-serving entities and stakeholders in Orange County and across the State.